Behind The Avengers Shawarma Scene, A Last-Second Shoot That Made Hollywood History

“According to TMZ, sales of the meat have gone through the roof,” is the strangest thing you’ll hear today, though in context, it makes sense. The above clip is part of a new featurette explaining how the post-credit stinger for Joss Whedon’s The Avengers came to pass.

A lot of this is common knowledge, though maybe not with the detail that is spelled out in the clip. We were on the scene back when Robert Downey Jr. broke the “news” at an Avengers press conference that the ensemble was planning on shooting one last scene for inclusion in the movie. It ended up being the shawarma restaurant scene – a joke shoehorned into the Avengers credit sequence. Which was fitting. The standalone movies leading up to The Avengers all teased The Avengers. Whedon had nothing that he needed to tease next, but he did have room for one cute little sequence to humanize his superheroes just a little bit more.

But pay attention to the very last bit of that clip, where Whedon lies to a reporter and claims he has no idea what scene the journalist is asking about. Shifty Marvel minions. They’ll spin any deception to protect their little secrets. Does that mean Planet Hulk is in the cards for Marvel’s Phase Three? I’m starting to believe that more and more.

Anyway, the shawarma scene was pun little piece of punctuation on The Avengers, and it’s a nice gift to fans to show them how it came together in the fly, with days to spare before the movie reached theaters. Now let’s hope there’s a healthy tease for Thor: The Dark World attached to Iron Man 3.